The first of John Gardner's novels featuring Ian Fleming's secret agent. Bond has been assigned to investigate one Dr. Anton Murik, a brilliant nuclear physicist who is thought to have been meeting with a terrorist known as Franco. Together, they plan to hijack six nuclear power plants around the world and start a global meltdown, unless Bond can stop them...
©2011 John Gardner (P)2011 Orion Publishing Group Limited
chappers
"Ho hum"
Afraid this did nothing for me. After the first intriguing 5 minutes, it lapsed into a rather dated and pedestrian tale of a powerful rich baddie up to dastardly deeds in his Scottish castle plus beautiful girl in need of rescue. There are a couple of notable action sequences that raise the heart rate a little, but these are more than overwhelmed by the screeds of minutiae in the rest of the writing. Even the narrator (the usually excellent Jeremy Northam) sounded bored. I kept listening in the hope that it would pick up but, believe me, it doesn't.